アニ・ノート

For some reason, this struck me as humorous:

Remind me never to kiss Yoko. It seems like whenever someone does, they soon wind up as dead meat.

Where did I see that before?

Don Curtiss was playing with fire.

So, here it is. I’m quite happy that Youko has escaped clutches of ADV, and ended at the sane half of Bandai. I may live long enough to see a release.

They sure are having fun at ADV’s expense: “I’ve got to release it in North America this year… What am I going to do?!”

There’s more, Bayoab live-IRCing the panel at #animedvd (the channel of AoD):

<bay|NYCC|Bandai> > trailer is over…
<bay|NYCC|Bandai> > So that is Gurren Lagann…
<JJR|Work> heh
<bay|NYCC|Bandai> > aniplex and bandai will be releasing it starting in july
<PioneerB> http://www.bandai-ent.com/gl/GL1.html
<bay|NYCC|Bandai> > as some of you may know…
<bay|NYCC|Bandai> > very new acquisition for us
<bay|NYCC|Bandai> > as a result of that… we are starting it in july, but it will be july/august/september release… SUB ONLY

Awesome, isn’t it? They discarded the work ADV has already done and re-doing it as a subtitled release for expediency.

UPDATE:

<Chris|work> dub in q1 2009

Oh. Dubbed release is still coming, only later than the subtitled release.

TAF was very noticeably driven by the industry, and the industry only cares about the newest stuff. Sure, there was an NHK booth with en exposition dedicated to NHK’s 35 years in business (they showed a set of short videos there which were quite interesting). But overall, it was all the upcoming stuff everwhere. I don’t remember any materials about Naruto or Bleach there (there must’ve been, but not prominent at all).

Gurren-Lagann was an exception. GAINAX dedicated it huge booth, which must’ve costed them. And it’s for a show which was off the air for months. The booth had a roof, and fans were taking pictures of it like crazy. I took one too, although the significance of the signage was lost on me.

They also trotted out cosplayers (TAF forbids amateur cosplay). It was a success every time they came out, but not as big as when seyuus visited around noon on Saturday. The whole area was mobbed and I became concerned about possibility of trampling. No, seriously. I’ve never been in a situation like that at AX.

So yeah, Gurran-Lagann is popular. But from what I know about it, it’s deserved.

DiGiKerot e-mails:

Weren’t they announcing details on/promoting the forthcoming Gurren Lagann movie at TAF? That’d probably explain why they had such a large area.

Why didn’t I think of that? I didn’t see any promotional materials, but quite possibly it was the reason.

Seen at Beta-Waffle:

A lot of the Bandai Entertainment news from NYCC was really surprising. Not just the Gurren Lagann thing, as astonishing at that was, but the talk of their release patterns. Whilst being sub-only (and I know a lot of the dub community are rather disappointed about the now completely-scrapped ADV dub of the show), I’m really rather appreciative of Bandai working to the release schedule that they are for Gurren, and that despite the delay it’ll be out there for the sub-viewer just as quickly as the ADV release would have if they kept the schedule. I also love the price, of course, and I really hope the sales are good enough to work for them. This is really not only Bandai, but the Japanese licensor, going out on a limb to get a fast, cheap release out on the market. It’s precisely the kind of thing that a lot of people have been asking for for a long, long time, for a show which a significant fanbase. It really deserves some support.

Indeed. In my relief about ADV swept aside I forgot even to think about the implications and the meaning of the deal. But he’s right.

Gundam 00 wasn’t surprising in the slightest, though.

Heh.

If you care about Gurren-Lagann, read Zyl’s post now.

BTW:

The marathon almost ground to a halt early on though. I tend to be quick to judge and eager to give up; Kamina’s machismo and Simon’s I MUSTN’T RUN AWAY fits made me want to run away from this series. But what saved the day was being spoiled about Episode 8 which made me re-look at Kamina in a more sympathetic light and to look forward to Simon’s growth.

That’s why we ought to have lots of spoilers in blogs.

By way of the dot-anime (which unfortunately lacks the site feed):

I got an update from GAINAX production manager Saito-san about their staff coming to Fanime.

Apparently they’re sending 46 people this year.

A good number of them are Gurren Lagann staff. Almost all of the Gurren Lagann staff are in their 20s, and GAINAX board director Takeda-san wanted the young staff to expand their creative vision by seeing the world. So thus the field trip to San Jose, CA.

I hope they like it. I’ve been to Fanime before, it’s not bad.

I just fired up a blog reader and the first thing I saw [*] was a useful reminder to buy Gurren Lagann. But yes, I do not have a United States Postal Service working, but UPS has already delivered me a package (an unwanted one). So I can haz animu!

[*] I’m not lying about the reader. All my previous entries from the new location were driven by blog referrals.

Brickmuppet:

Even more awesome… to balance the badassery… this red headed Annie Oakley of a dark tomorrow seems level headed, smart and… shockingly… out and out pleasant!!

I don’t know who Annie Oakley is, but I laughed.

UPDATE: Chizumatic provides the necessary information about Annie Oakley.

The ADV dub, seen at American TV for a short while, is dead. The Bandai dub is the new game (available at Sci-Fi Channel).

Not bad. I didn’t see undue censorship, and the voices were quite palatable.

UPDATE: Jason liveblogs the broadcast.

First-hand journalism at ANN (via)? Look for yourself as Egan Loo interviews Gurren-Lagann staff:

Takeda: [] When we actually first suggested [the episode], they said, “Oh, it shouldn’t be a problem.” Yet, when we completed the animation footage and showed it to them, they said, “There’s no way we can show this.” The biggest issue was that peeking into the women’s bath — that act alone — is illegal. Therefore, we can’t show that during a child-friendly timeslot. Why couldn’t they have told us that when we gave them the script before? So we had to do what we could to get it on the air.

Fascinating. I am thrilled with anticipation of seeing Boota saving the day (yes, I haven’t seen that episode yet).

Also:

Yamaga: We hope to be working on Gurren Lagann for the next decade. This work we know as Gurren Lagann will continue.

Uh-oh.